Hold­ers progress in KO, easy for Val­letta and Ham­run

Luxol be­gan their de­fence of the Ga­torade KO with a com­fort­able 9-4 win over Sliema Wan­der­ers at the Cor­radino Pavil­ion.

The St Andrews out­fit, fresh from their tri­umph in the Su­per Cup, ad­min­is­tered most of the match and were on tar­get through goals from Emil Ra­ducu (2), Matthew At­tard, Carl Az­zopardi, Glenn Bonello, Mark Zam­mit, Celino Alves, FraneDespo­tovic and Gian­carlo Sam­mut.

Sliema Wan­der­ers, who tried hard to con­tain their more quoted op­po­nents, an­swered through a Niko­lay Filipov hat-trick and a goal from Alek­san­dar Ribic.

Val­letta made up from their up­set in the Su­per Cup as they routed new­com­ers Tarx­ien 16-2.

Their lat­est ac­qui­si­tion Raphael Felipe Or­tiz de Oliveira was the Ci­ti­zens’ in­spi­ra­tional player as he net­ted seven goals.

Last year’s run­ners-up, Ham­run also pro­gressed to the next round af­ter a com­fort­able 9-1 vic­tory over Qormi.

Ham­run, who had a rel­a­tively new team from last year, dom­i­nated the match from the word go and found the net through new Brazil­ian re­cruit Ever­ton Veve who notched a hat-trick.

On the other hand Daniele De­gen­naro hit the tar­get twice while Florin An­ton, Alex El­lul, Luke Sti­vala and Frank Paul Az­zopardi com­pleted the score for Ham­run.

Mean­while, Univer­sity of Malta, Swieqi, Marsas­cala and Msida also eased their way into the last eight of the Ga­torade KO af­ter win­ning their re­spec­tive en­coun­ters.

Univer­sity of Malta and Swieqi reg­is­tered the big­gest scores af­ter hav­ing the bet­ter of Mrieħel and Żur­rieq Wolves 9-3 re­spec­tively.

The Univer­sity stu­dents, for­merly known as Md­ina Knights, had Leo Mus­cat help­ing him­self with four goals as Djordje Mak­si­movic, Rod­ney Debono, An­drea Far­ru­gia, Gae­tano Ge­sualdi and Ai­dan Caru­ana also found the net.

Msida man­aged to over­come the stiff chal­lenge of Qrendi 6-2. The team led by Kevin Agius, had Liam Cachia in fine form as he net­ted a poker while Ryan Xuereb and Clau­dio Venuto added their tally.

Robert Bal­dacchino and An­tonello Brin­cat re­duced the score for Qrendi.

Marsas­cala, on their se­cond sea­son of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the lo­cal fut­sal com­pe­ti­tions, saw off Swieqi Un­der 21 5-1.

Justin Mif­sud scored a brace while Ryan Mif­sud, Paolo Cae­tano and Liam Gauci were also on the mark for the South­ern­ers.